#13/#12 Texas opens Big 12 conference play by hosting Oklahoma State Wed, Jan. 02. Common foe: Both hosted Tennessee during the out of conference part of the season. OSU lost 63-76 and Texas lost 82-88. Horns hold a 34-15 edge in the series, including 30-14 in Big 12 games. Texas has won the last eight in a row, including a Big 12 tournament game in March, 2017. Texas starts Big 12 play on a three game winning streak while the Cowgirls have won their last two. Oklahoma State Cowgirls (9-2; 0-0) Braxtin Miller (#14, 5-10 Soph. G) and Vivian Gray (#12, 6-1 Soph. F) combine for almost have of the 71.8 ppg that OSU is averaging. Miller is scoring 17.8 ppg while V. Gray adds 17.0 ppg. Jaden Hobbs (#23, 5-8 Soph. G), LaTashia Jones (#20, 6-2 Sr. F) and Mariam Gnanou (#15, 6-5 Jr. C) are the next three scorers at 7.0, 6.7 and 6.5 ppg. OSU is making 39.4% from the field, good for last in the conference at this time. Abbie Winchester (#25, 6-1 Soph. F) is the only Cowgirl hitting over 50% from the field at 55.0% but has only taken 20 shots and made 11 in eleven games. Miller (64-181; 35.4%) and V. Gray (70-168; 41.7%) are the main gunners for OSU. Jones with 62 FG attempts is third on the team in taking shots. She is making 38.7% of her shots. Starters Hobbs and Gnanou are hitting 45.6% and 45.8%, respectively, from the field. They do shoot well from BTA with three players hitting over 40% from 3pt range. Hobbs is the most accurate, hitting 47.7% (21-44) while V. Gray is at 46.2% on 12 of 26 treys. Miller is the third Cowgirl shooting lights out from BTA at 40.8% (20-49). Miller and V. Gray do an excellent job of getting to the FT line and of making their FTs. Miller gets to the FT line almost six times per game and makes 75.0% of her FTs while V. Gray averages just under four FT attempts per game and hits a team leading 89.7% from there. Jones is the third leading rebounder in the Big 12 at 10.4 rpg. V. Gray (5.8 rpg) and Gnanou (5.7 rpg). Kassidy De Lapp (#1, 6-3 Fr. F) and Miller add 4.9 and 4.3 rpg, respectively. Miller leads with 4.2 assists per game while three others average over 2 apg. V. Gray (15 blocks; 1.4 bpg) and Gnanou (12 blocks; 1.1 bpg) are the top two shot blockers. Seven players have at least seven steals with V. Gray (17), Miller (14) and Jones (11) all having reached double digit steals. Four players have been fixtures in the OSU starting lineup with V. Gray and Miller starting all eleven games. Jones sat out the last game but had started the previous ten while Hobbs has ten starts in 11 games, including starting the last seven. Eight players have at least one start for the Cowgirls. V. Gray (32.7 mpg), Miller (32.2 mpg), Jones (29.5 mpg) and Hobbs (28.5 mpg) are the only Cowgirls averaging more than 17 mpg. Five others have played in at least ten games, averaging at least 9 mpg: De Lapp (17.2 mpg), Gnanou (16.2 mpg), Ja'Mee Asberry (#21, 5-5 RS Fr. G @ 15.6 mpg), Maria Castro (#30, 6-0 Sr. G @ 10.7 mpg) and Winchester (9.1 mpg). The Cowgirls have 13 active players and normally play 10-12 each game except when they tighten up their rotation against Tennessee (8 players) and UCLA (9 players). I expect their rotation will be tight against the Horns. Texas Longhorns (10-2; 0-0) Texas doesn’t have a dominant scorer but has four players averaging in double figures as the Horns enter Big 12 play. Jatarie provides 12.1 ppg as the top scoring post for Texas. Guards Sug (10.6 ppg), Danni (10.0 ppg) and Destiny (10.0 ppg) provide backcourt scoring. In addition, Joyner continues to increase her scoring output which is now at 9.3 ppg. Texas is connecting on 46.6% from the field, led by Olamide (23-36; 61.1%) and Jatarie (56-98; 57.1%). Five guards are the primary 3pt shooters for Texas. Danni (24-69; 34.8%), Sug (10-34; 29.4%) and Audrey (7-28; 25.0%) are willing to put up treys as the regular starting backcourt. Normally coming off the bench, Destiny (15-48; 31.3%) and Joanne (3-13; 23.1%) provide additional 3pt scoring. Joyner and Charli (2-7; 25.0%) are the only others to have attempted a three although Joyner has yet to connect on four attempts. Jatarie, although sitting out the game versus Northwestern State, still leads the team in FTs made (21) and attempted (27) for 77.8%. Destiny’s huge game from the FT line against Northwestern State where she hit on 11 of 11 FTs left her tied for the lead in number of FTs made (21) and just one back in number of FTs attempted (26). Her 80.8% from the FT line tops the team. Charli (19-24; 79.2%) and Audrey (17-24; 70.8%) join Jatarie and Destiny in making at least 70% from the FT line. Of the ten active players, eight average at least four rebs per game. Jatarie leads a group of four that average at least 5 rpg with 5.9 rpg. Four others average between 4.0 and 4.2 rpg. That team rebounding effort has Texas 3rd in rebounding offense, second in rebounding defense and second in rebounding margin. Sug leads with 71 assists (5.9 apg—2nd in the Big 12). She has an assist/TO ratio of 1.9, good for 8th in the league with 38 TOs. Charli with ten blocks in 11 games is only Horn to have more than six blocks for the season. Sug (20), Jada (12), Audrey (11) and Destiny (10) have all reached double digits in steals. Eight of the ten current active players have started at least one game. Texas has used four different starting lineups in 12 games. Sug and Danni have been the constants in the starting lineup as both have started in all 12 games. Jatarie has ten starts. Texas went small in their last game with Joyner, Audrey and Destiny joining Sug and Danni in the starting lineup. That was Destiny’s first start at Texas. Jatarie and Charli sat out the last game as Texas only played eight players. LINEUPS Projected lineups are based on the previous game’s starting lineups. A new starting lineup debuted for Texas versus Northwestern State, the fourth starting lineup used this season. Those are the projected lineups based on the last game but one has to wonder if Jatarie will be back starting in this game for Texas and if Jones for OSU will return to their starting lineup. Both sat out the final non conference game for their respective teams. OSU uses four players ranging from 6-2 (Jones) to 6-5 (Gnanou) in their post rotation. Having both Jatarie and Charli ready to pair with Joyner and Olamide will be important. Texas, based on the stats, will be looking to slow down both Miller and Gray. Both are going to be tough matchups for Texas players. Horns will need to play outstanding 3pt defense against three OSU players, leaving our posts to go one on one with the OSU posts, which is where Jones is critical to OSU’s success inside. Horns won’t be able to collapse inside much without leaving an outstanding 3pt shooter open. OSU, on the other hand, will have trouble deciding who to focus on. Possibly Joyner will be covered by Jones. But the Horns’ spread-out scoring means no one specific to focus on by opposing defenses. The big question will be if Texas is able to continue to shoot as well as they did from BTA against Northwestern State. STATS COMPARISON—for first conference game, stats are from OOC games. Texas has a better shooting percentage from the field and inside the arc but OSU is better from BTA and from the FT line. Neither team is outstanding in stopping the 3pter by opponents. So it’s possible that fans will see a lot of 3s going up in this contest. Both put up 1.6 shots a minutes. This not likely to be a slow down contest, quite the opposite. Should be fun to watch. And likely to be close. Neither team dominates any quarter although Texas has had the best success in the first and third quarters with those also being their top defensive quarters. OSU tends to build up during the first three quarters with the second being the main one in gaining separation from opponents. Not sure we will see much, if any zone in this game. Not with OSU having three players making over 40% from BTA. All ten Horns should get plenty of time while OSU may limit their rotation to 8-9 players from their available 13. Game time is 7 PM this Wednesday, Jan. 02. The game will be televised by the LHN and 105.3 FM will carry the radio broadcast. You can catch the game online on WatchESPN/ESPN3. No. 13 Women's Basketball preview: Oklahoma State - University of Texas Athletics Cowgirls Open Big 12 Play At Texas
Women's preview: No. 13 Texas vs. Oklahoma State | Hookem.com https://www.hookem.com/story/texas-women-seeking-basketball-cohesion-grit-big-12-play-begins/
Not much to watch today while waiting for our game to start. And most of those games are on ESPN+. WatchESPN: Live Sports, Game Replays, Video Highlights
20 minutes before the Tech at OU game starts on Fox College Sports-Central. Nice 1/2 hour warm up for our game at 7 PM.
Welp. I’ve already said what I had to say about this team and Karen. With mediocre coaching and a team that makes too many bad decisions it’s going to be a long year in conference.
Definitely not for the faint of heart. Looked like a blowup going into the fourth quarter. 7 scoreless minutes made it a nailbiter until the Horns pulled away in the last three minutes. Nice to see them make their FTs and hit some threes. Horns join OU, ISU and TCU in winning their Big 12 openers. OSU, Tech, KSU and WVU drop to 0-1 in league play.
We ended up scoring more points (barely)... Not sure I'd call this a "win." The poor decision making continues. I cringe thinking of the result this type of play will bring against quality opponents. It's very difficult to watch and is a product directly related to inept coaching.
brnkj--- if you read this, just for the sake of discussion, what do you think Karen should do to get turnovers down? I know she talks about it, but it must take something more than that. Are they often trying to go to fast? A lot of it just looks like impulsive actions without taking a second to think first. There's a good bit of passing to players who are just not open. Of course, we are pretty good at causing turnovers, too, but that is another subject.
Gets down to practice and "punishment" for turnovers during practice scrimmages. No difference from before the snap penalties in football.
I know punishment drills are the old classic among coaches. I am not sure, though. There are a lot of studies that punishment doesn't work that well. It may help stop behaviors, but can have a lot of side effects, such as making players overly cautious, create resentments, etc. Other possibilities would be to analyze the turnovers each player makes, discuss the mental process that that player goes through, rerun the play making a better decision, perhaps multiple times. Have each player keep records of their turnovers and come up with a plan of how they are going to cut them down. In general, increase self-awareness and help each player work on what it is that leads to turnovers for them. My general thought is that the Texas desire to run an up-tempo, running game creates a mainly unconscious lack of care-taking of the ball.
I agree. It's not simply punishment. It's coaching. Teaching. Showing them what led to the turnover and how they could make better decisions. Some are just sloppy mistakes - mindlessly passing the ball to the wrong person (or no person at all). Turnovers seem to be a trademark of Aston's coaching style - and I'm not just talking about creating them. I watch this team and think there's no way they're second best in the Big 12. At least not at this point. And after one conference game, a successful run in the NCAA tournament is hard to imagine. Hopefully we'll see dramatic improvement...soon.
For one, the halfcourt sets are a problem. We don't create and maintain the needed spacing to allow any fluid motion on offense and we end up forcing things in a clutser of players a lot of times. Also, that revolving door at the scorers table makes it dang near impossible to develop any type of continuity on the floor. I get that we want to utilize our depth to try and wear opponents down with fresh legs and aggressive defense, but a substitution every 30 seconds is ridiculously excessive. This is KA's SEVENTH year.... Enough said.
I would much rather see a coach who engages their players and utilizes situations as teaching moments. KA has an old hard-core, constant scowl on her face, constantly griping, punishment style of "disciplining" her players. It's antiquated and IT AIN'T WORKIN! At this point, judging from the body language I am seeing from the players, I am EXTREMELY concerned about the loss of more of our very talented players to transfer. They sure don't look real happy or like they're even enjoying playing anymore.
A believe a little of both to attain the discipline to take care of the ball. If I knew 5 suicides for each turnover and an extra film session with coach to discuss and develop/write a business plan to decrease my turnovers was waiting on me after every game I would definitely take more thought into chunking the ball down the court to no one in site. And as I always say repetition is the key to learning. Plus add on 100 passing drills in 10 different scenarios, ie inbounds, fast break, pick n roll, cross court, skip pass, etc for the entire team. Team game equals team discipline.
Enjoy the observations here, thanks ... as a long-time fan, what I see is a team like Charlie Strong's and Gail Goestenkors' teams. Something is missing - chemistry, interest, fun, accountability - not sure what it is and don't think extra drills or film sessions will matter, if the players aren't interested and/or think every game will be as easy to win as early-season cupcakes. We're seeing the cyclical nature of sports ... could be a long season ... every team has these lulls, and we have to hope they get it together sooner rather than later. (Or get lucky, as with OSU, which also played a mediocre game.) Watching Baylor-UConn - even Kalani Brown occasionally has to be reminded that she is really, really good.
I agree. But I also think at this point all those things are too late. Karen has allowed these types of bad decisions and habits since she’s been at Texas for the most part. They are who they are, and unfortunately that’s a team that’s not very well coached that makes too many bad decisions.
Karen has “allowed” this? Really? Maybe you don’t see the whole picture..while things are not perfect, I think everyone’s Coach bashing is not warranted... We all want us to win...we will have bad games and good games...I do think it will be a tougher year than we were planning on, due to no Sedona, no Lashann, and no Chaz..Could things be better? Yes...we need to MOVE more with and without the ball, plus, yes, the turnovers are something that I know are going to be addressed and hopefully rectified to a great extent..lots of room for improvement on this team, but I’m not ready to give up on them or their Coach just yet!!
